Thursday, June 21, 2007

Blizzardchen

Football Outsiders is analyzing plays and formations: it's a really good read if you want to understand football better.Patrick Reusse interviews Brad Childress (or at least, I think he does: Reusse uses the third person and passive sentences to make unclear who is actually asking the questions).

Conventional "wisdom" has recently been critical of NFL union head Gene Upshaw. Kevin Hench of Fox Sports looks closer, and finds that Upshaw has been a very successful union head. It is interesting how people lambast Upshaw while ignoring the great benefits the union has brought to players in recent decades, and without giving him even the tiniest bit of credit for the massive success of the NFL. Hench makes a good argument: he doesn't just accept the typical media line, but examines the context and details to show how Upshaw has done a very good job.